


Optical Illusion.

by reidbyers



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 03:06:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12497256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reidbyers/pseuds/reidbyers
Summary: In a drug induced panic you became convinced you would be the one to kill Peter Lewis, he was going to kill you if not and you refused to die alone in a stranger’s home. When the team arrived to the home and realised what a mistake you had made with your victim, nothing would ever be the same.





	Optical Illusion.

As long as he’s alive, the team is in danger.

That’s what you kept telling yourself, it was the only thing that made sense anymore once the drugs started to take their desired effect. Everything was blurry, your surroundings moving too fast to make sense of and a sickness rising in your stomach at the realisation there was a huge chance you were going to die here. There was no one else to blame but yourself, no one had put a gun to your head and forced you to drive to Susannah Regan’s home, no one had forced you to enter the house and especially no one had told you to go in alone.

Yet here you were, Regan’s corpse laying on the ground soiling the wooden floor with the blood oozing out of her neck and Peter Lewis nowhere in sight. He wouldn’t just leave, that made no sense. If the whole point of this was to get revenge then why would he leave someone alive who could stop him from doing just that? He was going to come back and when he did, you knew you had to kill him.

You groaned as you tried to sit up from the floor, you swore you could hear your head pounding from the headache you’d received after getting a blow to the head. There were so many noises around you that you couldn’t tell which one was him, all you could do was fumble around you for your gun, it had been kicked aside at some point and you prayed that he hadn’t left with it.

Just as you found your gun you heard the front door open, it was him. You recognised his voice calling out to you, there was no reason to keep you alive so this was it, if you didn’t kill him then when the team eventually found you it was going to be your lifeless body covered in your own blood. Everything was still blurry but with shaky hands you managed to pull yourself up onto your knees and aim towards the only entrance into the room, either the room was swaying or you were and in the state you were in you decided it was just the room.

As soon as someone stepped into view you pulled the trigger, you’d used half the bullets already during your initial encounter with Peter so knew you had to try and aim to kill. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind for a second that it was him, five people had died because of him and you weren’t about to become his sixth victim. You needed to get back to the team, needed to get back to Spencer.

Spencer, your Spencer. The man who who’d never had the courage to tell your feelings to in the fear he wouldn’t feel the same way. If only you knew what was to happen to you when you left the office then maybe you would have shared a train station moment, raising up onto your tiptoes to give him a kiss before you left never to be seen again. It would be okay now, you were going to tell him that you loved him once you got out of here, you just needed to make sure that Peter Lewis was beyond dead.

There was the sound of glass shattering as a bullet flew into a vase and sent glass flying in every direction, one bullet hit the wall but the next three hit your target. It was difficult to determine where exactly but you saw one hit his thigh, the last two going into his chest. The force of the bullets sent Peter flying backwards and he hit the ground, clearly not expecting you to have had the capability to work through the drugs. Once you ran out of bullets you threw the gun down and began to start crawling towards the body, he was still squirming on the ground in pain so with no bullets left all you had were your hands.

You weren’t even half way towards him before someone was pulling you up off of the ground, their grip on you was so tight you swore it could cut off your blood circulation and for a second you thought it was Peter but when you looked over your shoulder you realised it was Hotch. All the colour had drained from his face and he was staring across at Peter, it wasn’t the face of someone who was glad to have a murder in custody - it was the face of someone who was completely devastated.

“I got him, Hotch I got him. He’s dead.” You slurred before resting your head back against Hotch’s chest, he pulled you up from your knees and held you tightly as medics started pouring into the house. Hotch had forgotten how to speak as he stared across the room at the medics who had begun to look over who you thought was Mr Scratch, he didn’t want to be angry as he knew why you had done what you did yet he was angry. He was furious at what at happened but he couldn’t point that anger towards you.

“It’s not Lewis.” Hotch said slowly and loosened his grip on you when one of the medics turned around and looked at him, he wasn’t dead which he supposed was a positive but they didn’t look all too good about the odds. He knew how you felt about Spencer, everyone did and that was what made what he said next so hard. “It’s Reid.”

“It’s Scratch.” Despite feeling your heart drop you kept telling yourself that you were right, he was just trying to scare you. Maybe shock helped with sobering someone up and what bigger shock would there have been? You wouldn’t have shot Spencer - you couldn’t. It was Peter you saw and heard, you knew it. “He’s not- I thought I killed him. He’s moving, you need to kill him.”

Since Hotch’s grip on you had loosened up it was easier to wiggle out of his grasp, your legs were still too shaky to walk on but you managed to start crawling back towards the body of Spencer, no- Lewis. It was Peter Lewis, even as you got closer and closer and noticed the FBI vest on the ground you convinced yourself he had stolen it. Hotch knew he should have stopped you from getting any closer but he could get himself to move, the rest of the team including Morgan and JJ had now entered the room and too were hit with the knowledge you had shot Spencer multiple times.

“Get her away.” A medic said sternly when you tried to push past them to see who they were working on, their shirt was off revealing one small but intense red mark on his chest from where the bulletproof vest had done a miracle and stopped the bullet from entering, however his stomach was not so lucky and was currently being treated for a gunshot wound. It was almost like a movie, you stared across at Peter’s face and after blinking it was Spencer’s. You watched with horror as they cut his trousers off at the thigh and revealed a bloody mess from where he had been shot, from where you had shot him.

This time it was Morgan who tried to get you up, you needed to go to the hospital as well but seconds after you were on your feet pushed yourself out of his grip and staggered over to the corner of the room where you proceeded to vomit. The police outside heard your sobs, they almost entered the building as they mistook them for screams at first.

After that everything went blank, when you woke up it was in a room much brighter than the one you remembered being in and smelt much cleaner, the coppery smell of blood nowhere to be found. Once your vision adjusted to the light you realised it as a hospital room, and there was someone sat in the chair beside your bed. You didn’t trust what your eyes were telling you at first, it looked like Hotch but since you’d so severely gotten confused the last time you didn’t risk doing or even saying anything. Hotch soon noticed that your eyes were open and leant forward in the chair, groaning quietly at the chance to finally change his position. He wanted to be the first one to talk to you so he could understand what had happened and not let anyone misconstrue your words.

“Hey, how’re you feeling?” His voice was soft, you’d heard him sound like this many times on the phone with Jack and while you usually wouldn’t like to be talked down to it was actually comforting. Slowly everything was coming back to you, you knew protocol and the questions Hotch needed to ask you but right now you needed to know if Spencer was still alive.

“Is Spencer okay?” You almost couldn’t say it, your throat was sore from all the sobbing you had done but also you didn’t want the answer to be something you didn’t want to hear, it was like your body was trying to stop you from suffering any more heartache. Hotch nodded his head and your whole body seemed to melt into the mattress; he was okay. You hadn’t killed him, the guilt you felt hadn’t gone away but at least there was a chance you could spend the rest of your life making it up to him.

“He’s going to be fine.” Hotch was also relieved, when he wasn’t in the hospital room with you he had been out in the waiting room trying to get news from any of the doctors how Spencer’s surgery was doing. Spencer was a fighter through and through and sometimes it felt like he was just invincible, he’d gone through so much hurt both mental and physical and yet kept pulling through. It was exactly that which had Hotch so worried, when was his luck going to run out? “(Y/N), do you remember anything about-”

“I need to see him.” Even though you didn’t trust your eyes one hundred percent right now you still needed to see him to know he was okay, that Hotch wasn’t just telling you a lie so you would feel okay talking to him. Thankfully Hotch understood and proceeded to stand up from his chair and leave the room, going to find a nurse who could help you into a wheelchair. The mixture of drugs and the shock had created a combination leaving you not feeling steady enough to walk yet, your body was still detoxing and frankly Hotch felt better knowing he’d have control over you at all times.

Your rooms were quite the distance apart, it took around five minutes to get from your side to his and when you did arrive you were met with the rest of the team sat outside. If it had been one of them to have shot Spencer you would have given them the same reaction but to have them all stare at you in silence was terrifying, these were people who you considered you family but they also considered Spencer their family. It was hard but you chose not to be angry, they needed time and that was okay.

Before Hotch opened the door you asked him if it was okay to be alone with Spencer, you needed to apologise and you didn’t want anyone around you as you did so. Hotch’s first instinct was to say no, people knew it was you who had shot Spencer and it might not look good if you were left alone in there with him but he thought about if he was in your situation; if he had hurt someone he loved there would be nothing anyone could do to stop him from getting to them and expressing his regret. So, he agreed.

Spencer felt like his brain was rotting from having nothing to do, he already hated hospitals and had spent enough of his life in a hospital bed and all he wanted was to get up, read something, anything. He had been left to rest but he couldn’t with his mind constantly racing, he couldn’t stop recalling the events of the night before.

In his point of view he had gone through the front door while Morgan and JJ took the back, Rossi the side door. Everyone wanted to find you but no one more than him, he wouldn’t allow another woman he loved be killed without him getting to tell them how he felt. He had took a step into the doorway of Regan’s office and saw you knelt there, swaying slightly and squinting forward at him. It didn’t take a genius to know you had been drugged which also meant that Scratch had been here, before he could say anything you were firing at him. The first two bullets but the third hit him in his upper thigh, the pain from that alone was enough to drop him to the ground but not before you could get two more shots in towards his chest.

If he hadn’t been wearing his vest he would be dead, there was no question about that. One bullet was stopped by the vest but the second wasn’t so lucky, it hit him directly in the stomach and got through the vest, it had stayed within him hence the surgery for that along with the one on his thigh. The pain was indescribable, when he had gotten shot in the neck everything was sort of blurry and he couldn’t feel the pain all that much due to the shock and rapid blood loss but with this he felt everything.

His head turned at the sound of the door opening and he smiled at the sight of you, it was a tired smile due to the painkillers but it was a smile nonetheless. Spencer watched as Hotch wheeled you to the side of the bed, told you he’d be right outside and then left.

All you could do was stare at Spencer, he had gotten shot twice and yet still looked beautiful and glowing and alive. He was alive, he was breathing and smiling at you and you started to tear up knowing that you could have torn someone so good out of this world. That knowledge was enough to make you want to give in your badge and leave the team so you couldn’t hurt anyone else again, it didn’t matter if you were taking out bad guys if you got rid of the good guys too.

“How are you smiling?” You asked weakly, reaching up to wipe away the tears from the corners of your eyes. The list of things you were angry at yourself for kept growing and growing, you’d indirectly subjected Spencer into taking painkillers and with his history of drug abuse you knew how difficult that must have been for him and yet still, he smiled.

“You’re okay.” Spencer replied simply. It wouldn’t be helpful for you, him or anyone to be angry with you over what had happened. He knew the effects the drugs could have on people, it got people to kill their most loved of people without a second thought so it made sense that you were convinced under its influence. A few members of the team had come in before you and expressed their distaste for what you had done, that if you had waited for backup then none of this would have ever happened but Spencer refused to feel the same way. Whether that was his brain talking or his heart was another question but he just couldn’t make himself be upset with you when he was so glad you were okay.

All you could do was laugh through your tears at his absurdity, it was things like this that made it clear exactly why you were so head over heels for him. Spencer didn’t have a bad bone in his body, part of you wanted him to be angry at you because it would validate how you were feeling but along with being all these good things he was also stubborn; something you loved about him.

“Do you…have any idea how much I love you?” Apposed to before, these words were the easiest thing to say. You told yourself back in the house that when you got out you were going to tell Spencer that you loved him and that hadn’t changed, he deserved to know, he didn’t have to feel the same way but he deserved to know that he was loved; by you and so many more. Spencer didn’t look shocked by your confession, he just smiled wider and the creases around his lips deepened.

“Can I tell you something?” You nodded in response, waiting as Spencer yawned and cuddled closer to the pillows, the painkillers were making him sleepy so after he told you whatever it was you decided to let him sleep. “After I realised you left, everyone was panicked and preparing to come save you and do you know what I thought?”

“What?” You spoke so softly it was almost like the words didn’t come out at all.

“I thought to myself, when I get her back I’m going to tell her that I love her. Maybe she won’t feel the same because she’s just…just the most beautiful, intelligent woman I’ve ever met and she could have anyone she wanted but I’m going to tell her.” Spencer’s voice was so soft and quiet, his eyes were heavy with the need to sleep but he couldn’t make himself stop looking at you.

You didn’t know what the future held for you, after the things you had done you didn’t know if you were ever going to get back on the field again and you didn’t know if anyone would ever look at you the same but as long as Spencer was by your side you had something to look forward to.


End file.
